Beat The Blazers

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Be careful calling out Rickys D on here! Rickys only flaw is his shooting:/

Is Rubio still the most important and best player on the team?

Yes. He's the one that can still grow monumentally. If he ever learns how to score consistently, this team has an even higher ceiling.

Never said he was the best, though. That's easily Love's title.

[commandoelite5 [enjin:8196470]]

Rubio really did show a lot of promise in the first half, he was playing really well. I think he is the key to our success, when he is playing well our team is unstoppable. The turnovers he creates and the passes, its a joy to watch. Then lillard came out and dominated the second half, the defense on him wasn't bad on him all the time, he made some tough shots. It just shows how good of a player he really is. Love was incredible, he made some really good passes and at times played some tough defense on LA. Pekovic showed his post proffiecency this game, really playing some good basketball this season.

[Squishypoo [enjin:6648839]]

At the end of the day,We still need a bench.. Our big 3 won the game for us hands down(Love/PEK/Kmart) Other then that evey one else played like crap.. JJ 4-11 with 10 points...Danta 2-8 for 4 points,He did grab a few boards... Shved with 4 points,,Luc with 6..... Not just the bench ricky>2-11 with 9 points.. Brew only had 6 points.... Just saying if one of the big 3 have a bad night it well most liky end with a loss, If no one else can step up//

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

Missed the game because I was at 32000 feet, but obviously delighted with the result. Help me out with something because the box score is really weird. It has all the Wolves starters with a negative +/- except for Love who is a +5, but all the reserves have big positive numbers...ranging from Shved at +11 to Dante at +24. I see the big offensive numbers with our Big 3, but is the real story here that our bench won this game by shutting down Portland on defense?

If that's true, we will have had several solid games recently from the bench...maybe they have turned the corner. They destroyed the Blazers reserves in all categories. 24-20 in points, 17-9 in rebounds, 3-1 in steals, and NO turnovers compared to 3 for the Blazers reserves. Impressive.

We expected to beat a tired Portland team tonight, but to build a 32 point lead before taking the foot off the gas is huge. Let's get at least a split in LA, and then make hay with the easy late December/January schedule.

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Missed the game because I was at 32000 feet, but obviously delighted with the result. Help me out with something because the box score is really weird. It has all the Wolves starters with a negative +/- except for Love who is a +5, but all the reserves have big positive numbers...ranging from Shved at +11 to Dante at +24. I see the big offensive numbers with our Big 3, but is the real story here that our bench won this game by shutting down Portland on defense?

If that's true, we will have had several solid games recently from the bench...maybe they have turned the corner. They destroyed the Blazers reserves in all categories. 24-20 in points, 17-9 in rebounds, 3-1 in steals, and NO turnovers compared to 3 for the Blazers reserves. Impressive.

We expected to beat a tired Portland team tonight, but to build a 32 point lead before taking the foot off the gas is huge. Let's get at least a split in LA, and then make hay with the easy late December/January schedule.

Bench has been playing much better as of late. Is it of any surprise that two large reasons in my opinion are Mbah a Moute and Alexey Shved's resurgence. Yes, neither of them got a bunch of minutes last night, but boy were they good minutes.

Last night was a good win against a good team. Yes they were tired, but let's not overlook that our guys played three games in four days and still got the job done. I'm hoping/expecting that we kick the Lakers ass. They've been running Kobe as PG and I'm not sure that Farmar will be back Friday. While I'd be happy with a split in LA, I think it's time we get a win against the Clips. Two close games have gone their favor. At some point we have to get one, right? Plus I'm tired of Griffin getting more All-Star votes than Love and hopefully a head to head win will help Kevin's vote out. :D

[BizarroJerry [enjin:6592520]]

Love-1 Aldridge-0

And did Pek not allow Lopez to shoot the ball? I think the box score showed no FG attempts.

[markkbu [enjin:6588958]]

At the end of the day,We still need a bench.. Our big 3 won the game for us hands down(Love/PEK/Kmart) Other then that evey one else played like crap.. JJ 4-11 with 10 points...Danta 2-8 for 4 points,He did grab a few boards... Shved with 4 points,,Luc with 6..... Not just the bench ricky>2-11 with 9 points.. Brew only had 6 points.... Just saying if one of the big 3 have a bad night it well most liky end with a loss, If no one else can step up//

Wow.........i think that you are very much missing the boat on this one. Our bench played great. There is 0 chance that we could have won that game without the play of our bench. look at the +/- numbers for the Wolves. We coasted to victory off the lead that the bench created in the 2nd quarter.

Look at the #s. they shot 41.6% FG% 50.0% 3pt% 17 rebounds, 9 assists, 3 steals, and a block and 0 TOs (amazing). they only played 68 minutes. That is very good contributions from the bench.

The bench has been playing pretty well/ very well most every game since the D-Will trade. The bench built the lead in the 2nd quarter last night, calling the bench a liability is just plain wrong.

[markkbu [enjin:6588958]]

Missed the game because I was at 32000 feet, but obviously delighted with the result. Help me out with something because the box score is really weird. It has all the Wolves starters with a negative +/- except for Love who is a +5, but all the reserves have big positive numbers...ranging from Shved at +11 to Dante at +24. I see the big offensive numbers with our Big 3, but is the real story here that our bench won this game by shutting down Portland on defense?

If that's true, we will have had several solid games recently from the bench...maybe they have turned the corner. They destroyed the Blazers reserves in all categories. 24-20 in points, 17-9 in rebounds, 3-1 in steals, and NO turnovers compared to 3 for the Blazers reserves. Impressive.

We expected to beat a tired Portland team tonight, but to build a 32 point lead before taking the foot off the gas is huge. Let's get at least a split in LA, and then make hay with the easy late December/January schedule.

That is exactly what happened, not to mention that when the bench was in the offense continue to run pretty well. Just look at the assist #s.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Missed the game because I was at 32000 feet, but obviously delighted with the result. Help me out with something because the box score is really weird. It has all the Wolves starters with a negative +/- except for Love who is a +5, but all the reserves have big positive numbers...ranging from Shved at +11 to Dante at +24. I see the big offensive numbers with our Big 3, but is the real story here that our bench won this game by shutting down Portland on defense?

If that's true, we will have had several solid games recently from the bench...maybe they have turned the corner. They destroyed the Blazers reserves in all categories. 24-20 in points, 17-9 in rebounds, 3-1 in steals, and NO turnovers compared to 3 for the Blazers reserves. Impressive.

We expected to beat a tired Portland team tonight, but to build a 32 point lead before taking the foot off the gas is huge. Let's get at least a split in LA, and then make hay with the easy late December/January schedule.

That is exactly what happened, not to mention that when the bench was in the offense continue to run pretty well. Just look at the assist #s.

LST, to expand further on what Markkbu is saying, what happened is that the starters got us a decent lead in the 1st quarter (they were all +6 or higher in the 1st quarter, depending on when they went out). And then the bench came in and absolutely accelerated our lead by out-hustling and out-playing the Blazers; lots of easy fast breaks during that second quarter surge.

In the second half, Damian Lillard decided to go nuts and Portland picked up their defensive intensity. Because that happened when most of our starters were in the game, they ended up on the wrong side of the +/- column. But make no mistake about it, in addition to Love, Pekovic and Martin were huge for us in making key baskets and never allowing the Blazers to get closer than 10 down after that initial 30 point lead.

I will also say that Luc Mbah Moute is also starting to pay some dividends for us. He's making more of his shots and the guy he's defending is being held in check of late. In fact, I was begging for the Wolves to put Luc on Lillard just to throw something different at him defensively.